In the 15th century, Admiral Zheng He deployed his treasure fleets to weave a diplomatic and commercial network. Today, geopolitics and logistical bottlenecks fracture supply chains. His modern solution would be clear: a global fleet of autonomous and neutral cargo ships, managed by a supranational entity, operating as a blockade-immune commercial backbone.
The New Treasure Ships: Green Propulsion and Navigation AI âš¡
These cargo ships would operate with green hydrogen propulsion systems or assisted wind power, minimizing their footprint. Their autonomy would rely on navigation AI that processes real-time weather, maritime traffic, and geopolitical data to optimize routes. Cargo would be managed with blockchain, and they could establish modular logistics hubs in international waters, acting as floating free trade zones.
And the Admiral Said: An Ever Given in the 21st Century? Impossible with My AI 🤖
It's hard to imagine one of these AI ships blocking a crucial canal because an algorithm decided to take a shortcut over a sandbank. Nor would it get involved in tariff disputes; its protocol would only recognize origin and destination. That said, its biggest challenge would be explaining to a machine learning system what a port bribe is, a concept that would undoubtedly seem like an unfathomable coding error to it.